The nail-biting extended matchup where the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays by one run drew a aggregate 51 million watchers in the United States, Canadian, and Japanese markets. MLB stated this marks the most-watched Fall Classic finale after the 1991 edition contest between the Minnesota Twins and Atlanta Braves.
Broadcast Viewership Details
The Saturday memorable game averaged 27.33 million audience members on Fox Sports channels, its Spanish-language channel and their streaming platforms. According to Nielsen, it was the second highest-rated broadcast of the week.
It additionally is the top-rated Fall Classic game since the 2017 final game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and Astros, which averaged 29.07M. This marks a 16% increase over the last finale featuring the Washington Nationals and Houston Astros, which attracted 23.19 million.
In the weekly rankings, Game 6 placed 4th, Game 4 was seventh, Game 5 came in eighth, and Game 3 finished in 13th position.
Global Viewership Figures
In Canada, the climactic game recorded 11.6M watchers on the Sportsnet network and the French TVA Sports channel. This was the highest-rated English broadcast in the country since the 2010 Winter Olympics.
In Japan, where the deciding contest began at 9 p.m. local time, it drew 12M. This came after last Friday’s sixth game – in which World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto allowed a single run in six frames – recorded over 13 million viewers, making it the highest-rated Fall Classic game on a single network in Japan.
Overall Averages and Patterns
The full seven-game World Series averaged 15.71 million viewers on Fox, a 2% increase from last year’s Dodgers-Yankees series. This marks the first time since 2015 and 2016 that the World Series has recorded audience growth for two straight years.
Counting the opening game broadcast on Univision, the complete US viewership was 16.1M. The total World Series viewership in Japan was 9.7M and 8.1 million in Canada.
The complete MLB Postseason on Fox, FS1 and FS2 recorded over 8 million viewers, an eight percent increase over last year and Fox’s best playoff ratings after the 2017 season.
Major League Baseball reported that the Fall Classic was broadcast in 203 countries and territories by forty-four media partners in sixteen different languages.
